Howdy. Have been busy with…a job.
Yep.
Almost forgot what those were. I am doing, ahem, gulp, Census work. Can’t talk about that, cause privacy and jail and fines but…!
My day starts and I cannot find this address in my home town. I spend way too much time looking for it and though Google maps insists IT’S RIGHT THERE YOU BRAIN-DEAD IDIOT…it’s not there. I…? Help. Help…oh dear. Help.
This next part is super-dramatic!
Faceplant and blown tire!
I caught my foot on the tiny edging around X’s yard, and went full frontal. Whooomp. So embarrassed. I somehow got up, got out of there and my foot feels a bit throbby and, like, I jammed it really hard against a tiny edging or something.
I continue on my way! It’s roughly the surface of the sun temperatures that day. Well over a hundred. Off I go toward my third visit of the day, which is somewhere south of middle of nowhere at all. Not really, but close to it. I’m bopping along, trying to read the mailbox numbers with my bad eyes when WHAAAP WHAAP WHAAP.
Huh? Wha…?
That weird shaking seems from the end of the vehicle! Whaap whaap…that’s not the engine! It’s, wait for it, a tire. I somehow get pulled over, near the river. There’s a river nearby. And hey, my tire looks like it went a few rounds with Wolverine and lost so badly that it…it lost badly. Okay. This is not cause for worry yet. There’s a spare tire and I can change a tire and…
Except I’ve never changed a tire on this vehicle. I figured that out when I was trying to get the jack to work, then wondering how to get the spare tire down and…HOW DO YOU GET ANY OF THIS TO WORK IT’S SO DAMN HOT. And my foot hurt. I can see the tiny town, it’s not far off. I can limp there, get some help I haven’t bothered to try and flag someone down in farm and ranch country to help me.
Skipping ahead past skipping the walk into town on a bad foot on a highway with no pull over lane.
A man and his wife, fresh from church [social distancing be damned?] stop and hey, helped a limpy lady out. He got it changed but the spare was low so his wife went back to their house to fetch their air pump, which runs on batteries. And remember it’s a billion million degrees, and he’s in his nice church clothes and…ugh.
I felt like a total helpless idiot because I could not get that tire changed on my own. I can now change a tire on the GMC if I have to. I know where the spot is to place the jack, how to brace the tire so the car doesn’t roll, how to loosen or tighten the lug nuts. Yeah. I have changed tires on my own, just not on this vehicle. So I felt extra crispy helpless and stooooopid.
But. He did get the tire pumped up enough to get me home—some thirty miles or more. I ended my abortive day and toddled off toward the early end of my ordeal.
The next day went much better! Except my foot seems worse, swollen and now, a bruised toe. But I will drag myself about, oh yes, I will. Stop it, foot! Knock it off! Go to a doctor?? BWHA HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. In AMERICA?? And hope I have enough in my checking account to cover x-rays and pills and the visit itself and…fuck off, haters.
Go to a doctor. I can’t even.
So yes, I am home today, watering my poor thirsty plants and trying to find some urge to write. I have to get back into the habit of writing.
Well, that’s it for now. Goodbye from Hell’s Front Porch.
ANN WUEHLER 